Joaquin Niemann makes the final putt on Hole 18 to win the Genesis Invitational which is held in February in Pacific Palisades.
Some of the people who live in the “Polo Fields” neighborhood — the land between Paul Revere Middle School and the historic Riviera golf course — are shocked that kids go to school or that golfers use the course. Even more shocking, a major PGA golf tournament is held once a year. It’s a pure week of horror—much like the catastrophic fires that periodically threaten Pacific Palisades!
It must have come as a surprise to the people who purchased these homes, that moving next to a golf course that was built in 1926 and a school that opened in 1955, could generate traffic.
The Tiger Woods Foundation (TGR), which benefits from the Genesis Open, targets underserved kids throughout Southern California. In a 2020 interview with reporters, Woods said, “We’ve had nearly 300 kids come through the scholarship programs and we’ve served over a million kids now, so it’s been tremendous for us to come back to the area where it all started to have this type of event.”
This past Saturday, about 1,000 youth came to the Riviera, with TGR providing transportation and food and beverages. TGR also works with setting up the tournament.
Joe Reda, the operations manager for TGR Live, sent a message to people who live near the course and said he had spoken to LADOT and appraised them of the upcoming tournament traffic and the proposed rideshare arrangement with Uber. He said there would be staffing on Brinkley to “specifically monitor the operations,” and he would be visiting neighborhood homes to introduce himself and talk more about the plan.
The response was immediate from one neighbor, Reza Akef, who wrote: “As the [Pacific Palisades] community council representative for this area, I am going to tell you that your rideshare plan was NOT approved by the community. Please change it immediately. I have cc’d the L.A. City Council office and the Pacific Palisades Community Council president as well.
“You can move your rideshare people to get on the shuttle at the parking lot in Santa Monica with everyone else, but you cannot continue to infringe on the quality of life of our neighborhood and expand your program like you are trying to do this year. In fact, you’re lucky that you have a program this year because quite frankly, the Riviera Country Club has not been a good neighbor every other day of the year for the past few years, even after being told by the City to behave.”
Another resident wrote CTN and complained about traffic generated by Paul Revere and the Genesis tournament.
This editor is not too sympathetic because I live next to Temescal Canyon Road, near the high school, and must contend with ancient stadium lights that invade the neighborhood—and diesel trucks that line up on Temescal with motors idling, and beach traffic and hiking traffic that crowd this road.
So, I live in an area of town that has year-round issues, but I hate meanness. A Polo Fields neighbor told Joe Reda that their kids had put up a stand on Longworth and made $814 selling lemonade and snacks. They acknowledged the kids would have never made that much money without the generosity of the golf fans, and they wrote, “We’ve reached out to both Make-A-Wish and Starry Night to share this story and would love for the Genesis Open and Tiger Foundation to be a part of the donations we’ll make to them. We’d love to have your support!!”
Reda replied, “Thank you so much for this blessing on my Sunday morning. Please tell me the address and I will see if I have anything to add to sell for your worthy charities.”
It should have been a heartwarming moment, but instead, Akef wrote:
“All I’ve got is a ton of extra noises, people using my front yard as an Uber pick-up spot, littering of cups, beer cans and scooters in front of my house, and private drivers parking in front of my house smoking their cigarettes.
“Oh, and how fun it’s been moving my car every two hours because parking enforcement is marking my tires. I had to remind a very nice officer to remember I just moved as he pulled out his ticket machine. It’s not a fun game.
“Next year you better have more traffic control or volunteers along all of Allenford to police your people and their effect on our quality of life. Maybe you need to put ropes up the sidewalks all the way to 26th Street to keep them moving like cattle. Further, find a way to make our streets for local access only during your tournament or at least pretend to do so with street monitors.
“This is a lot worse than two years ago. We are very annoyed.”
Here’s a suggestion. If homeowners are unhappy about the impact of the Genesis tournament every February, I’m sure they could rent their house for a week for a nice amount and travel to Hawaii, safely removed from the turmoil.
So glad you took a stand about this issue. Might I add that the same can be said about some of those who live near the Rec Center and Pali High. Many complaints about noise, parking and lights. Remember the brouhaha about the Pali High swimming pool?
This article trivializes what is actually a difficult and long-running situation that gets worse by the year, aggravated by the Riviera’s year-round zoning violations that negatively impact our neighborhood and the safety of Paul Revere students. I am very disappointed in this coverage.
Will someone let me know what Riviera’s zoning violations are?
But I repeat, don’t take it out on the “little guy” from TGR, who doesn’t know the history, either.
Thanks.
Sue
I do not believe this article is accurate. Living on Jonesboro place, I am fully aware of the “issues” the Rivera/PGA tour brings. That being said, the massive spot lights that are on 24/7 that shine into my living room and bedroom are not acceptable, I sent a nice note with no response. The generators for the golf that drone all through the night are incredible disruptive for sleep, I woke up everyday with a headache. We now have orange spray paint all over the side walk because the tournament decided to highlight the uneven sidewalks… What do we do now? live with it? Maybe they should have come through before the tournament and informed the city and they could have fixed them…. Was the city ever informed? You state it is only a week but not for the Polo field homeowners, it’s weeks of disruption prior and after the event. It is not the inconvenience of traffic that get people in this area upset but the total lack of consideration by the PGA and the Rivera. As I walk around our now quiet neighborhood, I am in clean up mode picking up beer bottles, cigarette cartoons, food cartoons etc. Maybe before writing the article you could have interviewed some of the long term neighbors and ask, why are there more complaint this year than any other?
Not that I can speak for my neighbors, but I don’t think the issue is really about extra traffic for a week. It’s the fact that the tournament seemingly can use our private property as they like with no permission or notice. We used to get up to 8 free tickets to the tournament to mitigate the fact that we can’t park in front of our houses for a week. This year no tickets were offered, so the one perk we got to deal with the inconvenience is gone.